


Reality

by Libstar



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 13:46:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9237668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Libstar/pseuds/Libstar
Summary: Somehow Serena has managed to ignore the fact that Bernie spent her life before they met in near constant danger until she overhears her talking to someone else and realises exactly how lucky she is to have the other woman in her life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This didn't turn out exactly the way i wanted it to because I kept it in my head for too long instead of getting it down on paper and it got a bit jumbled. As usual I've written this in the space of an hour and it hasn't been edited or betad so any and all mistakes are my own.

Somehow Serena always manages to separate Bernie before they met and Bernie after they met, manages to ignore the fact that she was in active service, can ignore the fact that she spent more of her life than Serena has known her in very real danger.

Bernie has PTSD yes and she’s gotten to a point where she can talk it through with Serena if she needs to but what she gets from that are simply snap shots, and snap shots of other people in danger, she manages to ignore the very real fact that in order to remember it, to be affected by it, Bernie was also there and in danger herself. The scars which litter Bernie’s body are numerous and varied and, lying in bed at night Serena traces them with her fingers, with her mouth, yet she remains removed from the truth that they illustrate, the truth that Bernie could have easily never been hers to love.

It’s not until they treat another decommissioned soldier, a trauma case which Bernie heads, that Serena begins to let it all sink in. When he’s out of the worst of it he begins to tell stories to anyone who will listen, stories from his time on the front line, things which happened to him, things which should have killed him long before he got into the RTC which landed him at Holby.

Serena is doing his 1am  obs when she finds Bernie sat at his bedside, she slips in quietly, not wanting to interrupt, does what she needs to do but then something makes her stay, makes her listen. Bernie is talking about the day the IED blew her up and back to Holby and its not like Serena hasn’t heard the story before, from Porters, the from Henrick and eventually from Bernie herself, but the way Bernie is talking about it that is different. Usually she removes herself as far as possible from any story she tells of her time in the army but here, now, with this man she doesn’t know yet still shares a connection with she is truly talking about it, about how she felt, mentally and physically and Serena knows that Bernie doesn’t know that she is the one who has come to check the obs because she is sure that if she had, she wouldn’t be talking like that. It’s not that Bernie doesn’t share her feelings with her, she’s getting better at it, but when it comes to talking about her old life, she always removes herself, remains clinical. Hearing Bernie, the woman she has come to love with all that she is, talk about how she was sure, so sure, that she was going to die and that when she woke up, knowing she’d never serve again she wished she had done, breaks her heart.

Bernie finds her in their shared office some time later, face red, make up gone, sleeve damp with tears, takes one look at her and is across the office in a second, kneeling in front of her, squeezing her hands between her own.

“Serena darling what is it?” she asks gently, frowning deeper when her only reply is another strangled sob, more tears. She doesn’t hesitate in pulling Serena down onto her knee so they are both sat on the floor, rocking her gently, stroking her hair and whispering soothing nonsense until the tears slow, become tiny hitches in breath and then snuffles. Serena hides her face in familiar blue scrubs, takes comfort in being surrounded by the sound and smell and feel of Bernie and feels like a prize idiot for her reaction.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Bernie prods and Serena only buries her face further, gripping the scrubs at Bernie’s waist in a tight grip, “Please Serena, talk to me.”

“You’ll think I’m ridiculous,” she whispers and she’s not even convinced that Bernie has heard her until a kiss is pressed to her head, fingers are brushed against the back of her neck.

“Serena Campbell, I could never, would never, think that you’re ridiculous, now please, tell me what’s got you so upset.”

“You could have died,” she says and hearing it out loud brings fresh tears to her eyes, “You could have died and I never would have known you, never could have loved you.” She waits for the laughter as she tries to get her tears under control, as much as saying it out loud brings more tears, it also makes her realise how utterly ridiculous she has been.

“I could have,” Bernie agreed and Serena allowed her face to be moved out from its hiding place until they were face to face, “The first time I was sent out, or the last time, or any time in between,  but I didn’t. I managed what few of us do, I got out, with scars yes, but with my life. What’s brought this on?”

“I overheard your conversation with Sergeant Chapman,” she muttered, brushing Bernie’s fringe out of her eyes only for it to fall back as soon as she took her hand away, “when I came in to do his obs. You were talking about the IED, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about it that way before and I, well, it made me realise a few things which I had been ignoring for a long time.”

“Maybe that’s partly my fault,” Bernie said quietly, looking down at their hands which were now joined between them, “I’ve never been good at talking about that side of army life, I’ve never wanted the people I love to know exactly how close I’ve come to not getting home to them, but with other service personnel it’s different, they know what it’s like, they know what flies through your head when the whole world explodes around you and they aren’t fazed by it. I’m sorry you had to hear that the way you did, I’m sorry I wasn’t more open with you.”

“No Bernie, I’m sorry, for reacting like this, I’m an intelligent woman, I know what you have seen, what has happened around you, but I let myself ignore the fact that you were in the middle of it all, not an observer protected by a TV screen. I suppose I didn’t want to accept the very real fact that we could never have met, that this,” she gestured between them with a smile, “might never have happened.”

“But it did happen,” Bernie smiled and pressed their foreheads together, “And as much as it was scary and I came close to falling sometimes, I wouldn’t change anything that has happened in my life so far because all of that lead me to you Serena and honestly, there is no place on this earth that I would rather be.”


End file.
